"It's all psychological. You yell barracuda, everybody says, 'Huh? What?' You yell shark, we've got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July." In the summer of 1975, the budding auteur, Steven Spielberg, created a virtual panic at America's beaches with ingeniously crafted screen images of a certain...

More than seven million Germans and 53,000 Austrians tuned in last Sunday evening when the public-service German television broadcaster ZDF aired the first part of the World War II miniseries Unsere Muetter, Unsere Vaeter (Our Mothers, Our Fathers). It is Germany's decade late response to HBO's war...

"Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot," exclaims Shakespeare's Henry V in his fervid St. Crispian's day speech on the eve of the battle of Agincourt in 1415. In the observance of this month's 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq there appears to be no danger...

In the kaleidoscopic world of power politics in Asia, the United States' pivot to that region may yield the unintentional consequences of fostering closer strategic ties between the two Asian giants -- China and India -- which could result in a strategic alliance ostensibly hostile to Western interests in the...

I appeared on the talk show 'The Fresh Outlook' this weekend to discuss cybersecurity issues and China. Here is a link to the video. I argued for a more nuanced, less panicky approach when dealing with China on this sensitive subject.

Here are some more thoughts:

October, 2012 marked the 50th anniversary of the 1962 Sino-Indian War. Communist China launched a surprise attack across the Himalayas to "teach India a lesson," according to Chinese Premier, Zhou Enlai. After 32 days of fighting and embarrassing Indian defeats, the Chinese announced a unilateral ceasefire and withdrew behind the...

For the first time in my living memory, the Austrian Federal Army is front-page news of Austrian papers and is debated heatedly on public television. Riding a populist crest but lacking the foresight of any clear direction, Vienna Mayor Michael Hauepl, Federal Chancellor Werner...

The journalist Joseph Alsop was not mincing words in his syndicated column on August 1, 1958: "The Eisenhower Administration is guilty of gross untruth concerning the national defense of the U.S." The reason behind this vitriol was the now infamous (and fictional) missile gap--a presumed strategic advantage for...

This week, the Indian National Security Council Secretariat released recommendations by a joint public-private working group on cybersecurity aimed to strengthen India's cybersecurity capabilities to combat the rising threat from cyberspace. One of the key recommendations is the establishment of a "Joint Committee on International Cooperation and Advocacy" to promote...

When U.S. Major Lee and Captain Gil entered Ganat Kahiyl High School in Zormat District, Paktia Province in Eastern Afghanistan, a local teacher slipped them a small note: "The Taliban have visited our school and forced their curriculum upon us. Can the government help?" If the teachers did not comply,...

"They were discontented always with what government they had; such being their intellectual pride; but few of them honestly, thought out a working, alternative and fewer still agreed upon one." Thus noted T.E. Lawrence, presumptuously, in his book Seven Pillars of Wisdom, which recounts his exploits...

"Cyberwar is coming!"announced two RAND Corporations analysts in 1993, yet to date, there is a wide controversy surrounding the existence of cyberwar. Opinions among policy makers, IT experts and the military differ widely with some referring to the threat as a looming "Cyber Pearl Harbor," while...

Theodor Lessing's book Der Jüdische Selbsthass (Jewish Self-hatred) was the first work to discuss the concept of Jewish self-hatred, which as the British Journal of Social Psychology states "is often used rhetorically to discount Jews who differ in their lifestyles, interests or political positions from their accusers." In...

A recent reading of E. M. Forster's novel, A Passage to India, prompted me to reflect on the West's drawn out engagement in Afghanistan. The centerpiece of this prescient narrative is an incident in an ancient cave in Northwestern India between an Indian doctor and an English woman...

"Men at some time are masters of their fates."

Amid the worsening economic picture, political leaders across the globe are under attack for their lack of leadership and failure to inspire confidence in their constituencies in the face of mounting global problems. President Obama especially has been criticized as...

Since the recession, bashing the European Union has become a sport for U.S. commentators. Just skim the most recent headlines, and one is led to believe that the old continent is on the brink of economic, political and social collapse. The truth is that very few commentators really...

According to the recently released Norton Cyber Crime Report for 2011, 431 million adults worldwide were victims of cyber crime last year. The total cost of those crimes amounts to some $114 billion. This precise statement, however, hides an important problem: We actually lack comprehensive data in assessing...

On a moonless night in the morning hours of Sept. 13, 1759, a procession of boats steered silently down the St. Lawrence River. The boats contained the small British expeditionary force under the command of 32-year-old, red-haired Major-General James Wolfe, who in a low voice repeated line after line of...

Why policy makers should pick historical analogies wisely

Indiana Jones, despite being chased by Nazi thugs through Europe and the Middle East, manages to select the one Holy Grail among hundreds in a cave chapel in the dramatic finale of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. His ominous...

Why the recent attacks in Norway should remind us of the inherent danger of the political word.

The correlational dichotomy between words and deeds is as old as history itself, ranging from Alexander the Great reading the Iliad, which supposedly inspired him to conquer the world, to the disturbing image...